The Slovak Defense Minister pointed to the huge scale of desertion in the Armed Forces

There is a huge scale of desertion in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). This was announced on March 10 by Slovak Defense Minister Robert Kalinak.

"The scale of desertion in the Ukrainian army is huge. <...> What Ukraine lacks is people. <... They have [weapons] in relative abundance, but they don't have people," he said.

According to him, this situation among Ukrainians is precisely because of the desertion of men. Kalinyak added that there are at least three or four divisions of Ukrainians on the territory of the European Union (EU) who are capable of participating in the conflict.

Going down the slope: Ukrainians have become the main violators of the EU border

The number of draft-age men who have taken refuge in Europe from mobilization has exceeded 1 million

Earlier, on February 4, Ukrainian lawyer Vladislav Mikhailenko reported that the number of deserters who voluntarily left the Armed Forces of Ukraine could reach about 200 thousand people. According to the lawyer, Ukraine deliberately does not collect up-to-date statistics on deserters, so this number of those who left the service is approximate.

Prior to that, on January 31, it was reported that in 2024, the number of cases of desertion in Ukraine increased 3.5 times. It was noted that 66,240 criminal cases were initiated on the unauthorized abandonment of a unit (Article 407 of the Criminal Code) and 23,209 on desertion (Article 408 of the Criminal Code).